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the Public Health Act, 1891. A new form of certificate, w hich
embodies the additional information for the supply of which I
had provided in the certificate in use in this parish, has been
prescribed by the Local Government Board for the use of
medical practitioners, who are now required to state the full
name and the age and sex of the patient, the full postal address
of the house, and the name of the infectious disease, and
whether the case occurs in the private'practice of the certifying
practitioner, or in his practice as a medical officer of any public
body or institution. The medical officers of General Hospitals
and Infirmaries, moreover, are now required to notify cases
like other registered medical practitioners, and to state in the
certificate the place from which, and the date at which, the inmate
was brought to the hospital; the certificate, I may add,
is sent to the Medical Officer of Health of the district in
which the said place is situate.
NOTIFICATION OF MEASLES.
The Vestry of St. Margaret and St. John, Westminster,
being of opinion that measles should be added to the list of
notifiable diseases, took steps, in January, 1891, to have that
disease scheduled ; but the Local Government Board were not
disposed to make an exception with respect to one parish in
the Metropolis. The said Vestry, therefore, taking note of the
fact that there is "no power to check the spread of measles by
enforcing notification, disinfection, &c.," addressed a communication
to the several Sanitary Authorities, pointing out the
desirability of the necessary steps being taken, in the interests
of public health, to obtain the classification of measles as a
disease to which section 55 of the Public Health (London) Act
applies, viz., by the adoption of the required resolution under
section 56. In my first and second monthly reports for the
current year, I dealt with this question—pointing out that, as
the deaths from measles in the first four weeks of the year
were 301, whilst the deaths from scarlet fever and all other